Frost DW: Frequent rune blackout and RP starved

What am I doing wrong?! It has been a while since I've really actively played the DK, and he is technically an alt, but I didn't think I had lost this much understanding. And yes, I have read the EJ and other threads, so I'm filled in on what I "should" be doing, I just think I'm either still not doing it right or I'm missing something.

I have been having trouble with my fresh 90 as I start to get gear. I'm DW Frost, and it feels like I'm sucking wind on runic power and frequently black out on runes. I think I'm doing the rotation right, but maybe there are some bad habits from wrath and cata bleeding through. I open typically like:

Outbreak-Obl-Obl-Obl-FS and then play it as things proc, trying to spend my KM on FS and only hit Obl when I have UH rune up and only hit HB for rime. I frequently end up in these states where I'm at best maybe one death rune available and everything else is still cooling at 3-4 s. I can't figure out what I'm doing wrong.

This really isn't a problem while questing, but in 5 mans and LFR I've been having this issue.

Maintaining a proper Rotation and using the right Cooldowns is essential to maximizing your Frost Death Knight. Use this guide to optimize your single target and AoE rotations while learning how to get the most out of your cooldowns.

Your highest priority should be to keep both diseases active on your target all times. Use Outbreak to apply diseases. Howling Blast will automatically apply and refresh Frost Fever, so the only disease you need to keep up is Blood Plague. Simply use Plague Strike whenever Blood Plague needs to be refreshed at < 3 sec remaining.

Consuming your Rime and Killing Machine procs are your next priority. Prioritize Howling Blast with Rime over Killing Machine procs. Use Killing Machine on Frost Strike if DW or on Obliterate if 2H. Keep your Runic Power from capping by weaving in Frost Strike as needed. When your target reaches 35% Health, you should prioritize Soul Reaper above everything except for maintaining your diseases.Ignore using Obliterate if you are DW at all times.

Rune Regeneration Talents: DW Frost DPS uses Blood Tap to generate Death Runes. Blood Tap should be controlled manually so you can use Blood Tap when it best fits into your rotation for an additional Howling Blast or Soul Reaper. 2H Frost uses Runic Empowerment which provides passive Rune regeneration and does not need to be managed.

AoE Rotation - 5.1

Howling Blast
Death and Decay

Combine Outbreak + Pestilence to spread diseases. Use Howling Blast with Frost and Death Runes. Keep Death and Decay down and Frost Strike when you are close to capping Runic Power.

2H Frost DPS is able to "game" Runic Empowerment to force optimal Rune refreshes during AoE. Only use Death and Decay when all Frost and Death runes are on CD and you are unable to Frost Strike. Do not consume any other Unholy Runes. By doing this, you will always get Frost or Death Runes returned to be used on Howling Blast spam. DW Frost should just continue to use Blood Tap for additional Howling Blast.

Effective Cooldowns - 5.1

These effective cooldowns are available if you chose them in your talent build.

Blood Tap --- Use as directed in the single target and AoE DPS sections (DW only).
Plague Leech --- Use just before Outbreak is available for an extra Death Rune.
Death's Advance --- Use to close gaps to targets or to get out of the fire.

These are effective cooldowns to try and incorporate into most all encounters.

Army of the Dead --- Use pre-pull as part of your opener.
Empower Rune Weapon --- Use on cooldown to burn through extra Runes.
Horn of Winter --- Use as a filler to generate Runic Power.
Outbreak --- Use to quickly apply your diseases and to refresh Blood Plague.
Pillar of Frost --- Use on every cooldown. Combine with Raise Dead.
Raise Dead --- Use on every cooldown. Combine with Pillar of Frost.

Reforging Gear (Patch 5.1)

Reforging allows you to modify the secondary stats on your gear. Use this guide to determine the best strategy for reforging your stats so that you can optimize the performance of your Frost Death Knight.

If you are below 7.5% Melee Hit or 7.5% Expertise, you should reforge the weakest stat (see stat priority) on the item into Hit Rating or Expertise. Do this until you are at the caps for both stats.

2. Optimize Secondary Stats

If you are Hit and Expertise capped, you should optimize your gear for Mastery (DW) or Haste (2H). Reforge the weakest stat (see stat priority) on an item into Mastery (DW) or Haste (2H) without losing your Hit and Expertise caps.

Gems & Enchants (Patch 5.1)

Gems and Enchants allow you to customize your stats and choosing the right gems and enchants is critical to developing an effective Frost Death Knight. Use this guide to view the selected best gems, enchants, and profession perks to use for your Death Knight.
5.1 Gems

Engineering provides the single strongest DPS gain of any profession with its tinkers. All other professions provide the same moderate DPS gain, with the exception of Tailoring which provides the smallest DPS boost. Always use a profession perk if it is available.

You should be using blood tap instead of runic empowerment. Keep both unholy runes on cd so when you use bt you active one of the runes as a death rune. Also as a Sha stated, HB and FS are your main attacks, obliterate is garbage as dw.

Better gear will give me more haste naturally, which will smooth out my regen.

I hit Oblit too much. I guess I'm hitting it with death runes instead of HB'ing my death runes... that kind of makes sense. I was really hitting HB only on rime or if I had absolutely nothing else to do. Spending death runes on HB looks like it might fix my issue or at least alleviate it. I think some of this is bad habit from playing in cata or maybe I'm just imagining it. I have it hardwired in my head that oblit is to be hit. Maybe I'll just go 2h instead.

I will try blood tap. TBH though, I'll have to macro it if I can, I can't really have another button on my bars right now, I have already gone through an OCD episode trying to fix everything with my blood offspec.

Thank you, this has actually made a lot of sense, and has put me on the right track, I think, to fixing this.

DW values haste over mastery mostly through T14, only catching up at BiS gear. If I were dw I'd keep haste and mastery roughly the same with haste above around maybe 1k rating.

This is wrong. As DW, the majority of your rune usage is on HB thanks to lower Obliterate damage, and KM's prioritized toward Frost Strike -- this favors mastery by a large margin. If you're having trouble with downtime, it is going to be partially because of low haste, but stacking haste will lower your DPS unless you're going to swap to 2H as well.

One thing you may not be doing that helps a lot is using Plague Leech. You wouldn't think one extra rune every 30 seconds is much, but over the course of a fight it can help smooth out portions of your DPS you may otherwise be forced to spend waiting. DW does end up with a bit of natural downtime, however -- in my current gear (489 average ilvl), it's simming at about 7%, but that number doesn't account for extra RP you gain through AMS. You should be using AMS to soak up RP whenever possible, and in HoF and Terrace (especially the latter), there are many, MANY opportunities to, which is another thing that will fill empty GCDs.

I'll stress it again -- don't gear for haste unless you're switching to 2H. If you play DW and gear for haste, you are gimping yourself. If you see people using anecdotal evidence to tell you it's a good strategy, don't listen because it is wrong and bad. Even if you somehow simmed with haste very slightly ahead of mastery, you'd lose damage whenever more than one target is present (and if you've raided at all in T14, you know that there are many times where you have more than one target present).

EDIT: And before someone argues with me, I've simmed my gear from 463 all the way to where I am now, and have played DW the entire time. Never has haste outweighed mastery. So either mathematical calculations are wrong, or people making blind claims are wrong.
Gee, I wonder which it is.

hummz what is your haste rating? once you got haste to a certian lvl mastery well come better then haste. but if your got alot of blackouts and rp starved. you can have tons of master. but its better to do 3x hb that do 10k dmg in 10 sec. then 2x hb that does 12k dmg.

I will try blood tap. TBH though, I'll have to macro it if I can, I can't really have another button on my bars right now, I have already gone through an OCD episode trying to fix everything with my blood offspec.

If you're gonna macro Blood Tap in DW you're better off just keeping RE and gaming Frost and Death runes.

Soooo for Blood Tap it's ideal to use it when you have both unholy runes on CD to force an unholy refresh and use on HB?

No. BT generates a death rune regardless of what you have up.

Regarding the mastery VS haste problem: it's not really about your haste level but more about you whole gear level. At lower levels of gear haste will be better but mastery will catch up and surpass haste the more gear you get.

As someone stated already, do not macro BT. If that's your plan then you should stick to RE and go 2h. I tried macroing it at the beginning of the expansion and there's no way to do it effectively, you just have to practice a bit and you'll understand how to use it correctly.

hummz what is your haste rating? once you got haste to a certian lvl mastery well come better then haste. but if your got alot of blackouts and rp starved. you can have tons of master. but its better to do 3x hb that do 10k dmg in 10 sec. then 2x hb that does 12k dmg.

I switch between dw and 2 hand depending upon which works best for progression fights. As dw I have over 4K haste and 42% mastery fully buffed. As 2 hand I have over 8K haste and 27% mastery fully buffed. As for black outs, thanks to proper use of BT and effective use of AMS to gain extra rp I rarely find myself without something to do. However, I do find still find very small moments of downtime when I am 2 hand but that's just part of the spec.

---------- Post added 2012-12-14 at 02:05 PM ----------

Originally Posted by Imbalanced

Soooo for Blood Tap it's ideal to use it when you have both unholy runes on CD to force an unholy refresh and use on HB?

It is ideal to use blood tap when you have both unholy runes on cd as they will be chosen and converted into death runes which can then in turn be used on howling blasts. As for the comments about not using the macro, while I do not use it; it can yield the same death rune output as manuallly would IF you watch your charges and do not use them until both of your unholy runes are on cd.

It is ideal to use blood tap when you have both unholy runes on cd as they will be chosen and converted into death runes which can then in turn be used on howling blasts. As for the comments about not using the macro, while I do not use it; it can yield the same death rune output as manuallly would IF you watch your charges and do not use them until both of your unholy runes are on cd.

A death rune is a death rune, doesn't matter if it's in the unholy slot or frost slot. Regardless of which runes you have active/on cd, BT will activate a death rune you can use to HB (as long as you don't have a rune of each type active, in which case you just can't BT at all).

A death rune is a death rune, doesn't matter if it's in the unholy slot or frost slot. Regardless of which runes you have active/on cd, BT will activate a death rune you can use to HB (as long as you don't have a rune of each type active, in which case you just can't BT at all).

Umm bro converting unholy runes for more howling blasts>converting depleted frost or death runes for more howling blasts. Letting the unholy runes return as unholy is a dps loss via plague strike or obliterate (which hurt your dps as you are losing out on potentional howling blasts). Unholy runes for a dw frost dk are like the pesky blood runes before 4.2. You want to get rid of them and convert them as quickly as possible so you can maximize damage output.

Edit: Before anyone says I didn't mention DnD the reason why I didn't is because it certainly isn't a dps for dw and should be used to burn an unholy rune as soon as it comes off cd furthermore, if you are not doing this you are gimping your damage.